{"id":43761,"date":"2015-02-28T22:17:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T14:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=43761"},"modified":"2025-01-16T17:48:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T22:48:29","slug":"unmasking-of-jihadi-john-as-a-london-university-graduate-sends-shock-waves-through-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/28\/unmasking-of-jihadi-john-as-a-london-university-graduate-sends-shock-waves-through-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Unmasking of \u2018Jihadi John\u2019 as a London university graduate sends shock waves through Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Screenshot<\/a>
Screenshot from VOAvideo<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONDON\u2014The unmasking of Islamic State militant \u201cJihadi John\u201d as a London lad who had repeatedly been questioned by security services sent shock waves through Britain Friday, with Prime Minister David Cameron stepping in to defend British spy craft.<\/p>\n

Cameron tried to defuse criticism of Britain\u2019s security service, which had \u201cJihadi John\u201d on its list of potential terror suspects for years but were unable to prevent him from travelling to Syria, where he has played a prominent role in grisly beheading videos.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Cameron did not mention \u201cJihadi John\u201d or refer to his real identity: Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwait-born computer science graduate raised and educated in Britain. But he said the country\u2019s spies make \u201cincredibly difficult judgments\u201d daily about how to pursue threats to national security and have broken up plots that would have caused immense damage.<\/p>\n

Emwazi had been known to the British intelligence services since at least 2009, initially in connection with investigations into terrorism in Somalia.<\/p>\n

David Anderson, who is in charge of reviewing Britain\u2019s terrorism legislation, said intelligence agencies may have dropped the ball, but faced a big challenge to identify real threats from \u201chundreds, probably thousands\u201d of suspects.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps they did slip up in this case but one won\u2019t know until there\u2019s been an inquiry or a report of some kind,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

The case has some parallels to that of two al-Qaida-inspired extremists who murdered a British soldier in a London street in May 2013. A report by lawmakers concluded that delays and other failings by the agencies had contributed to that tragedy.<\/p>\n

However, it is not clear what laws could have been used to prevent Emwazi from leaving Britain at the time, since he had not been charged with any terrorist-related offences. It is not known if police or security services had any evidence he was planning to join extremists in Syria.<\/p>\n

His identification as the front man in IS murder videos has raised questions about how a soccer-playing London youngster who liked smart clothes became one of the world\u2019s most wanted men.<\/p>\n

Authorities were working to piece together the path to radicalization of Emwazi, who came to Britain from Kuwait as a small child and attended state schools in London before studying computer science at the University of Westminster.<\/p>\n

Court documents from 2011 obtained by the BBC list Emwazi as part of a network of west London men suspected by MI5 of sending funds, equipment and recruits to al-Shabab militants in Somalia. The group included Bilail al-Berjawi, a Lebanese-British militant who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Somalia in January 2012.<\/p>\n

Emails that Emwazi sent to a Muslim advocacy group reveal a young man increasingly frustrated by the attentions of British spies and angry at the plight of Muslims around the world.<\/p>\n

Emwazi approached the group, CAGE, after he and two friends were arrested and deported on a trip to Tanzania in August 2009. They said they were going on a post-university safari. But Emwazi said he was grilled by a British intelligence officer who accused him of trying to\u00a0travel\u00a0to Somalia to link up with terrorists there.<\/p>\n

He said the agent, who identified himself as Nick, suggested Emwazi \u201cwork for us\u201d before saying \u201clife will be harder for you\u201d if he did not co-operate.<\/p>\n

It is clear that Emwazi was unnerved after his unwanted interrogation.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew everything about me; where I lived, what I did, the people I hanged around with,\u201d he wrote in one of the emails that CAGE made public Thursday. \u201cHe even said that he would try to visit me. But I refused and told him that I did not want him to pay me a visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following year Emwazi accused British agents of preventing him from going to Kuwait, where he had a job and planned to marry. He wrote in one email that his \u201c\u2018life\u2019 is kind of on a \u2018pause.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

Like many British Muslims who have become radicalized in recent years, he seemed to feel that Muslims were increasingly under attack in many parts of the world and complained to CAGE of the plight of his fellow believers in Chechnya, Iraq and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

CAGE said that Emwazi even changed his name in a bid to escape the attentions of the security services, but still was barred from going to Kuwait. His family reported him missing early in 2013. Four months later, police told them Emwazi was in Syria, CAGE said.<\/p>\n

He appeared in a video released in August showing the slaying of American journalist James Foley, denouncing the West before the killing. A man with similar stature and voice was also featured in videos of the IS killings of American journalist Steven Sotloff, Britons David Haines and Alan Hemming, and U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.<\/p>\n

Foley\u2019s parents in Arizona on Thursday expressed surprise that \u201cJihadi John\u201d was an educated man who had real prospects in life.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he, in a sense, had a privileged upbringing, so to me that makes that even more sad that he\u2019d want to use his gifts for such evil and such hatred. It\u2019s very frightening to me,\u201d Diane Foley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to forgive him for not having a clue what he was doing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The widow of Haines, a British aid worker, said Friday she would like to see \u201cJihadi John\u201d captured and put on trial.<\/p>\n

Dragana Haines told The Associated Press in a phone interview from her home in Croatia that \u201cI really hope he will be caught, I think it would be a good lesson for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haines, whose husband was killed in September, said she would rather see Emwazi judged in a court of law than killed by enemy action.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople of his kind believe that death in combat is an honour, something special,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In the modest west London neighbourhood where Emwazi\u2019s family lived, citizens were shocked after his identify was revealed.<\/p>\n

Sharaft Ullah, who worships at the Harrow Road Mosque near the family home, remembered Emwazi as a strict Muslim who prayed several times a day. He said Emwazi was \u201ca very good local guy and polite with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel angry because he was educated in this country and he graduated from Westminster,\u201d Ullah said. \u201cIf he has been doing these things it\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n

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\u201d<\/p>\n

Another mosque that Emwazi was reported to have attended, the Greenwich Islamic Centre, said it had no knowledge of him.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia and Astrid Galvan in Tucson, Arizona contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON\u2014The unmasking of Islamic State militant \u201cJihadi John\u201d as a London lad who had repeatedly been questioned by security services …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":43762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-w","mauthors-jill-lawless","mauthors-gregory-katz","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284708,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43761\/revisions\/284708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}